Washington Park students, faculty embrace a special woman with special needs
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter
Kimberly Resh answers a question from a student during an assembly Monday at Washington Park Elementary School.
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter
Kimberly Resh, with daughter Mikayla holds the book, “Our Friend Mikayla,” which tells children about people with disabilities, during an assembly Monday at Washington Park Elementary School.
A special person with special needs visited Washington Park Elementary School this week – and made everyone feel special.
Mikayla, a young woman with significant developmental disabilities, made a rare appearance in Western Pennsylvania Monday. Seated in a wheelchair and accompanied by her mother, she captured the hearts of students, faculty and administrators during three assemblies. And most impressively, during the first session, she secured the rapt attention of the youngest, most fidgety kids.
“How would you feel if you were in a wheelchair?” Kim Resh, Mikayla’s mom, asked the group of about 300 kindergartners, first-graders and second-graders.
“Nervous,” one student said sheepishly.
“How many of you would feel nervous?” Resh asked the youngsters gathered in the auditorium. Many raised their hands.
“We’re nervous when we don’t understand,” she said. “Mikayla has friends and pets, but you don’t know that. We learn from Mikayla that people with disabilities aren’t different. Be honest and ask questions.”
Mikayla and her mom travel to eight to 10 schools across the state during an academic year, enlightening and educating students about the importance of inclusion of people of all abilities. The assemblies are free through Arc of Pennsylvania and the Include Me program, which, according to its website, is a “model for the inclusive education and gaining meaningful employment for Pennsylvania’s students with intellectual and developmental disabilities.”
The Reshes live in Nazareth, in the eastern part of the commonwealth, and have been to schools in the west only three times: near Erie, near Pittsburgh and now in Washington. Kim leads the assemblies, but through the participation of local students, Mikayla essentially lends her “voice,” too.
Although she has never spoken, the young woman inspired her family to form the nonprofit company Mikayla’s VOICE, an acronym for Voice of Inclusion for Children Everywhere. The “o” in voice on the website logo is a ladybug with seven black dots and one that is yellow, signifying that every person has something that makes him or her unique.
Kim explained to Washington Park’s youngest students Mikayla did not get enough air before she was born. “Her brain was injured and she can’t get messages to her legs and arms. She can’t eat with her mouth and is fed through a tube that leads directly to her belly. Mikayla doesn’t hear well, she doesn’t see well.”
But she can communicate via a switch on her chair. “Mikayla uses it to ‘talk’ by playing a recorded message,” her mom said. “She can play games on it.”
Kim added her daughter, who will be 23 on Dec. 23, bowls by using a ramp and participates in other activities with the assistance of others. Mikayla also attended the prom at Nazareth Area High School, from which she graduated in 2014.
The youngsters at the first assembly Monday were curious and uncertain at first, seeing Mikayla at the front of the auditorium. That was the likely scenario in Nazareth years ago, when the Reshes moved to Pennsylvania and requested Mikayla be included in a regular first-grade class. She was the first student in a wheelchair to attend her elementary school, and continued to be fully included through graduation.
“When Mikayla was in first grade, a lot of kids asked questions,” Kim said. “That happened in second and third grade, too.”
Third-grade classmates wrote and illustrated a book, “Our Friend Mikayla,” which was read to the students. It is a heart-warming endeavor, revealing the love, admiration and appreciation the Nazareth students had.
A sampling: “We had never had a friend with disabilities. Now we do.”
One class at Washington Park will replicate that effort. Amy Roberts, secretary for the special education, gifted and English as a Second Language programs in the Washington district, said the second-grade classmates of a student with disabilities are cobbling together a book about him.
Kim Resh invited the youngest students to come down and meet Mikayla, one at a time, and tell her something or ask a question. Nearly three dozen did, each touching Mikayla’s left hand, as Kim encouraged them to do. The first, a boy named Ronnie, simply but poignantly said: “I love you, Mikayla.”
Between assemblies, Kim Resh reflected on the messages she strives to impart with her daughter. They are partly about the differences in people, but mostly center on the importance of inclusion. At Washington Park Elementary Monday, they were lessons well learned.
“I think an event like this takes away all anxieties, fears of the unknown,” Kim said. “Once you meet a person with disabilities, you realize they’re not so different.”